Three-Dimensional Digital Water Curtain

Three-Dimensional Digital Water Curtain

18/10/2017 / Posted by Lumiartecnia

The 3D Digital Water Curtain represents the beginning of a new generation of digital water technology, showcased in a unique art piece that displays amazing three-dimensional water volumes, patterns and surprising evolutions.

Upon entering the museum room where it is exhibited, the audience is amazed to see the striking volumetric shapes the water Matrix curtain performs, while they walk around the art piece, in a theatrical atmosphere.

This new and original DWC belongs to “Robotic Art” exhibition. It will be exhibited at Science City, in Paris, from April 8th 2014 to January 4th 2015.

3D Water Matrix (Matrice liquide 3D, in French) is a robotic machine that creates water sculptures in real time, giving life to a continuous evolution of shapes and images. This installation creates ephemeral sculptures the viewer captures in a constant exercise of observation and surprise, almost a metaphor of the famous river of Heraclitus where “everything flows, everything changes, nothing remains.”

The machine consists of a small pool where the water falls controlled by a computer, which regulates the flowing liquid through 900 valves, distributed in a grid of 30 x 30, that shapes a fluid matrix, much like a solid structure.

The liquid stream generates in this way a waterfall that defines a very low resolution video of 30 x 30 pixels, where the third dimension is actually controlled by the force of gravity, regulating the water “pixels” permanence in space. The figures go materializing in front of your eyes animated by strobe lights that are previously programmed through a computer system, giving the impression the water stays magically floating in the air.

Two reputed digital artists have developed the art pieces for this robotic art exhibition: Shiro Takatani and Christian Partos.

The idea of ​​3D liquid matrix was born in 2001, during a visit to Lille, European Capital of Culture, where Shiro Takatani projected a robot fountain writer who was to deliver its messages by letting a string of liquid letters fall to the pond below. Unfortunately, the technology did not yet exist and he had to wait until now.

Shiro Takatani’s art piece, recreates a spatial experience creating multiple layers of parallel droplets that magically seem to float in the air, and for moments to rise from the pond and fall again in impossible evolving creations that seem to defy the force of gravity.

Christian Parto’s art piece, creates sequences of water sculptures that shows the DWC capacity for instantly generate an ephemeral water shape that disappears into the water to give birth to a new one, creating in this way a constant flowing video of 3d sculptures as as if they were photograms from a film.